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October 2021
*DIGITAL* The Path to Climate Justice is Local
Puerto Rican climate justice leader Elizabeth Yeampierre has helped pass climate legislation at all levels, including New York’s progressive Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. In this talk she describes how intergenerational BIPOC activists are changing the landscape of national climate priorities by speaking up for themselves and their neighborhoods. (Registration required.) Read More »
Vermont, 1800 and Froze to Death: The Cold Year of 1816
1816 has long been known as the year without summer. Vermonters still call it “1800 and Froze to Death,” a year of frosts every month, dark skies, and mysterious lights that caused a widespread belief that a higher power was displeased. In this talk, historian Howard Coffin includes scores of anecdotes on the dark year of failed crops, scarce food, and religious revival. Read More »
November 2021
A Life in Art and Activism
Artist, legislator, and former director of the Flynn Center in Burlington, John R. Killacky draws on commentaries from his book Because Art to relate his experiences as a dancer in New York in the 1970s and ‘80s, the maelstrom of the Culture Wars of the 1990s, and his work advocating for artists with disabilities. Read More »
December 2021
From “Little Jerusalem” to the “Lost Mural”: Preserving Jewish & Immigrant Heritage
In 1885, a group of Lithuanian immigrants settled in Burlington’s Old North End, where they transplanted their religious traditions and culture. Archivists Aaron Goldberg and Jeff Potash describe the “Lost Mural,” a rare survivor of the lost genre of European painted synagogues and tell the story of conserving the mural in Burlington. Read More »
January 2022
From Rembrandt to Vincent Van Gogh and Beyond
Author and artist Carol Berry describes how Rembrandt, Delacroix, Millet and other artists inspired Vincent Van Gogh to develop a personal and universal language that ultimately resonated with 20th century artists. Read More »
February 2022
Sermon From the Studio: Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”
Fifty years after its release, vocalist/composer Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, an extended work addressing societal (and personal) challenges, has grown more pertinent and haunting with age. Jazz archivist and poet Reuben Jackson shares tracks from and discusses this riveting recording. Read More »
March 2022
*DIGITAL* “It Was I Who Did It”: Women in the American Revolution
Why were women originally left out of the Revolutionary War narrative, and how did they eventually get written back in? Author Carol Berkin provides a close examination of the vital roles that women played in pre-revolutionary protests and in the revolution itself and describes how their participation helped create a new gender ideology. Read More »
April 2022
Vermont Reads: We Contain Multitudes
Author and professor Sarah Henstra visits Vermont to discuss her novel in letters, We Contain Multitudes. Our Vermont Reads 2021 choice tells how two very different teenage boys fall in love after being paired as pen pals. While it touches on domestic violence, bullying, and opioid addiction, the novel is also a beautiful story of friendship. Read More »
May 2022
The Jewish Diaspora in 20 Recipes
Food—like music and language—is a strong link to our past, no matter the shores on which we arrive. Natalie Neuert, director of UVM’s Lane Series, explores the recipes that Jews took with them to the Balkans, Europe, North Africa, and America, from British fish and chips to Bubbe’s brisket to the ubiquitous Shabbos supper of cholent. Read More »